Croatan's Bray looks to beach foes on mat, ocean

Published: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 10:45 AM.

Nonetheless, he added, coaches weren’t happy.

“Let’s just say I got a pretty chew out from (one of the assistants),” Bray said. “He gave me an earful.”

On the mat, Bray can be either a whirlwind or a chess player. As a freshman, he said he “didn’t have anything.” But he learned. As a sophomore he worked hard to get his technique down while also improving on timing his shots for takedowns.

“Then my junior year I really kicked in to (refining his) tempo and movement,” he said. “This year I’ve just really tried flowing with everything all together. I can be aggressive at times, but I can also back up, take a step back and be like, ‘OK, let’s re-evaluate what I’m doing here.’”

And while he doesn’t try to copy anyone’s style, Bray, who loves the “super duck” takedown technique, said he’s a fan of Cornell’s Kyle Dake, the only wrestler in history to win NCAA titles at three different weight classes.

“He wrestles a similar style to me. I mean, hey, you’ve always got to choose the good guys,” Bray said. “But I try to separate myself from other people and try to find my own style…, (and) off the mat I’m a friend, but on the mat I don’t like people.”

NEWPORT — When Croatan senior Alex Bray isn’t taking down an opponent on the mat or studying wrestling videos, the 5-foot-1, 122-pounder likes to throw a line into the ocean and see if he can land the big one.

And that’s only the half of it when it comes to the 18-year-old’s interest in fishing.

“We have fishing competitions (in the family) and no one can beat me because I just know how to do it,” Bray said as he relaxed after a recent practice at the team’s practice facility a few miles from the high school.

“I watch fishing shows all the time. I’m on the Internet looking up fishing techniques all the time, about as much as I am watching wrestling videos.”

Bray can’t recall his first fishing foray — it was probably while visiting his grandparents on Bogue Sound while living in Winston-Salem — but he knows it was love at first bite.

“Every summer I’d come down and I’d get in and be like, ‘Hey, grandma and granddad,’ grab a fishing pole and run to the end of the dock. That’s the first thing I’d want to do,” Bray said. “I just loved it.

“I guess it’s a way to clear my mind. At a younger age I didn’t really think about it like that, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve kind of felt like it really just calms my nerves when I’m stressed or something.”

It would seem stress would be more of a problem for Bray’s opponents, who have found it difficult to subdue the three-time state qualifier who finished fifth in the state as a freshman and third the last two years.

And at 41-4 this year, Bray looks like not only a shoo-in for the state championships once again but one of the favorites — along with several teammates — to bring home the gold March 2 at the Greensboro Coliseum.

So is state championship or bust for Bray?

Not exactly; while he is out to win the state 2-A title at 122 pounds, he insisted for now that he’s taking it “one match at a time.”

“I feel like I’m busting my butt, but feel even when I’m exhausted I can still go harder,” said Bray, who earlier this year won Croatan’s Beast of the East as well as the Tiger Holiday Classic in Chapel Hill. “The extra effort is really going to pay off at the end. My final goal is the state.”

Given his size, wrestling would seem a perfect fit — and it is. But Bray did try other sports. He took a stab at soccer and T-ball. But he didn’t really like either sport perhaps in part because he “wasn’t very good either.”

Little League, however, was a different story.

“I was pretty good,” he said, “but it wasn’t something that was really my calling.”

One year later when he was in the seventh grade, however, he found his calling. His father, Phillip, suggested he give wrestling a try.

“At first, I didn’t want to,” Bray recalled. “We got in the car and I was like, ‘I really don’t want to go.’ And the first practice I’m getting my butt kicked by this kid who’s been wrestling probably since he was 6 or 5.”

As he was being “manhandled,” he REALLY didn’t want to be there.

“But,” Bray said, “by the end of practice I was actually holding my own and I think I feel in love from then on out.”

But does he really love the sport?

“I don’t know if I’d call it love,” he said. “People ask me, ‘Do you really like wrestling?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t love the sport, but I know I’m good at it, and I don’t want to disappoint people and I don’t want to disappoint myself.’”

As a freshman, Bray wrestled at 106 pounds and then moved up to 112 the next two years before weighing in as a senior at 120 (122 with the 2-pound growth allowance after Dec. 25).

Which means one thing: Bray’s had to cut weight. As he spoke, Bray said he weighed about 129 pounds, but the Cougars were off for exams.

“So we’re enjoying ourselves a little bit,” he said. “I’m going to have to drop some weight.”

Bray’s weight downfall, he said, is Chick-fil-A. The day before he said he’d eaten breakfast and dinner there.

“Chick-fil-A is the place to be,” he said as his mother, Sandra, smiled.

Unless, that is, you’re in the 2-A state dual championships and about 5 pounds overweight, a situation Bray found himself in a year ago as the Cougars prepared to take on Piedmont in the finals.

It was, he said, a “pretty miserable” situation. While he worked hard to drop the weight, his teammates were enjoying a movie. Bray did go on to drop the weight and actually won his match on a tech fall.

Nonetheless, he added, coaches weren’t happy.

“Let’s just say I got a pretty chew out from (one of the assistants),” Bray said. “He gave me an earful.”

On the mat, Bray can be either a whirlwind or a chess player. As a freshman, he said he “didn’t have anything.” But he learned. As a sophomore he worked hard to get his technique down while also improving on timing his shots for takedowns.

“Then my junior year I really kicked in to (refining his) tempo and movement,” he said. “This year I’ve just really tried flowing with everything all together. I can be aggressive at times, but I can also back up, take a step back and be like, ‘OK, let’s re-evaluate what I’m doing here.’”

And while he doesn’t try to copy anyone’s style, Bray, who loves the “super duck” takedown technique, said he’s a fan of Cornell’s Kyle Dake, the only wrestler in history to win NCAA titles at three different weight classes.

“He wrestles a similar style to me. I mean, hey, you’ve always got to choose the good guys,” Bray said. “But I try to separate myself from other people and try to find my own style…, (and) off the mat I’m a friend, but on the mat I don’t like people.”